The issue dividing Israel: ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers

What will it take for the ultra-Orthodox community to play its part in Israel’s survival? Despite 7 October 2023; despite the “near-existential” threat Israel faces across a variety of fronts; despite the “attendant acute military manpower crisis” and the enormous sacrifices experienced by so many Israeli families in the Gaza war – despite all this, the Haredi community remains adamant that young ultra-Orthodox men should be exempt from Israel’s compulsory military service.

It’s pure moral cowardice, said David M. Weinberg in The Jerusalem Post. Nothing in the Torah forbids serving in war. Yet now, in a cynical bid to win back the support of his erstwhile Haredi government partners, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party has introduced a bill that essentially entrenches the community’s “draft evasion”.

Exemptions have become ‘institutionalised’

“The roots of this issue go back to the founding of the state,” said Eric R. Mandel in the same paper, “when David Ben-Gurion exempted approximately 400 Torah scholars from military service.” Back then, Haredim were far fewer in number, and Israel’s first prime minister believed their small and insular world would soon enough fade from existence. “Instead, the opposite occurred.” Driven by one of the highest birth rates in the developed world, Haredim today make up about 13% of Israelis; by 2065 it’s estimated they’ll reach 25%.

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And over the decades, their exemption from Israeli life has become “institutionalised”, producing a class of citizens who neither serve in the army nor participate in the workforce, yet still enjoy hefty state subsidies. That imbalance had already created serious tensions within Israeli society; but post-7 October and the ensuing war in Gaza, what was once a cultural issue has now become Israel’s “greatest internal security threat”.

A turning point in all this came in June 2024, said Sam Sokol in The Times of Israel (Jerusalem), when the supreme court called a halt to the all-too-blatant pro-Haredi discrimination and ruled that the government must start conscription immediately. After the ruling, religious “yeshiva” schools harbouring draft dodgers saw their budgets slashed, and draft refusers lost access to state benefits.

But Netanyahu’s coalition has long been dependent on two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ), said Haaretz (Tel Aviv). So even though the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are short 10,000 soldiers, or between 12 and 15 battalions, in the wake of the Gaza war, Netanyahu’s government, in direct violation of the supreme court’s ruling, has repeatedly called up reservists in their 30s and 40s – men with families – instead of recruiting from the 80,000 or so eligible 18- to 24-year-olds from the ultra-Orthodox community.

New bill ‘chock-full of loopholes’

Likud’s new bill is an attempt to put this inflammatory issue to bed, said Shalom Yerushalmi in The Times of Israel: Netanyahu is parading it as a “historic achievement”, claiming it will force thousands of Haredi men into uniform. In reality, “not a single battalion, never mind a division, will come of it”. And that’s because it’s “chock-full of loopholes”, said Sam Sokol. Criminal sanctions on draft dodgers are only due to come into effect in 2027; not only full-time “yeshiva” students, but anyone who’s studied in a “yeshiva” for two years between ages 14 to 18 will be considered ultra-Orthodox, and granted yearly deferments from enlistment.

The only recruitment likely to rise in number given those incentives is that of applicants to “yeshivas”. The bill has caused turmoil in Israel, said Ravit Hecht in Haaretz, and even within Bibi’s coalition. But the PM won’t mind. Having given the appearance of coming up with a solution, he can now sit on the bill while the nation argues it out. In short, he has resorted to “his time-tested tactic of playing for time” ahead of the 2026 elections. It’s classic Netanyahu, said Sima Kadmon on Ynet (Rishon LeZion): throw “a chunk of meat into the arena”, make us fight among ourselves and, in so doing, crucially, make us forget all about “his own failures”.